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The operators of one of the longest west-to-east-flowing pipelines in the United States want to
begin moving natural gas from Ohio back west, a clear signal that shale deposits here are paying
off for some companies.

The owners of the Rockies Express Pipeline, which starts in northwestern Colorado and runs
underground nearly 1,700 miles to eastern Ohio, have for the past five years used the pipeline to
move gas from the Rocky Mountains to the Midwest.

It ends in Clarington, Ohio, a small village in Monroe County on the eastern edge of Ohio.

The companies have filed an application to reverse the flow with the Federal Energy Regulatory
Commission.

Clarington is in the middle of the Utica shale and at the edge of the Marcellus shale. Both
formations have prompted a boom in drilling for oil and gas in this part of the United States. Both
have made it unnecessary to ship natural gas from the west.

“There’s no way you can beat your way through the Marcellus to get to New York City or
Washington or Boston or Baltimore,” said Tom Stewart, executive vice president of the Ohio Oil and
Gas Association. “So the only thing you can do is reverse direction and seek access to better
marketplaces, like Chicago.”

Tallgrass Development, the majority owner of the pipeline, said in its application that the
Midwest needs gas from Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Calls and emails to Tallgrass
Development executives were not returned yesterday.

According to the company’s application, Tallgrass would build no additional pipelines. Rather,
the company would use the existing pipeline and simply reverse the direction the gas flows in Ohio,
Indiana and part of Illinois, sending it west.

The natural gas that flows through the pipeline each day could meet the needs of more than
25,500 homes each year, according to estimates from the American Gas Association.

Tallgrass Development already has commitments from at least four energy companies that want to
move natural gas from shale in this part of the country. The company hopes to move 1.2 billion
cubic feet of gas a day — enough to heat about 17,000 homes.

The pipeline’s owners will spend about $78.3 million to retrofit existing stations and
facilities to regulate pressure in the pipeline, according to its application.

The Rockies Express Pipeline started carrying gas eastward through Ohio in 2009. At the time,
environmentalists and landowners raised concerns about the pipeline.

The public can comment on the new application through the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s
website, www.ferc.gov.

Tamara Young-Allen, a commission spokeswoman, said similar requests have not generated much
opposition.

Young-Allen said the commission will study potential environmental impacts of switching the
direction gas flows in the pipeline before making a decision about whether to approve the pipeline’s
request.

Statistics from the U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration show that there
are risks associated with pipelines. The agency’s review of incident reports for all Ohio pipeline
systems shows 137 cases of pipeline damage or failures of one kind or another from 2003 through
2012, the latest full year for which statistics are available.

That year, Ohio legislators passed a law blocking state utility officials from overseeing where
natural-gas pipelines can go.